I will be giving photography courses which will now be extended to include a complete Module devoted to aerial photography using the P3 Pro and the P4.

Before I allow the students to wreck a very expensive Phantom I want to have them develop their flying skills using something a lot less expensive.  For this purpose I am looking for an inexpensive quadcopter that does not have a camera or any of the "bells and whistles".  But the flight controls must be very similar to those of the Phantom, so that a student who has learnt to fly on the inexpensive quadcopter can quickly and easily migrate to flying the Phantom.

Any suggestions as to what piece of kit would do the job will be most welcome....

Thanks.

T.

Walkera qr X350Pro

The Hubsan X4 (model without the camera is the H107L) is also a good choice.
Have fun!

johnsr Posted at 2016-4-14 14:15
The Hubsan X4 (model without the camera is the H107L) is also a good choice.
Have fun!

Though i love my little Hubsan...I think he's looking for something with the same stick control's. The Hubsan has the trhottle stick which is a totally different control than the Phantom's...

My Hubsan Flying!

Try Syma X5C. It's cheap, less than $100. It's very stable and forgiving. It's big enough to be flown outside with some wind. If they can master X5C, then they can handle Phantom. It even have the same form factor as a Phantom.

Flying Poptart Posted at 2016-4-14 19:27
Though i love my little Hubsan...I think he's looking for something with the same stick control's.  ...

Yes - you are 100% correct.

The "training" quad must have the same (or very similar) stick controls to the Phantom so that the student can migrate easily and confidently from the "training" quad to the P3/P4.  One can think of it in the same way as learning to drive a car.  Not really helpful teaching someone to drive using an automatic and then expecting them to get their license with a 6-speed manual gearbox.

I need to feel confident that the student is not going to turn the Phantom into recycleable plastic.

T.

Yes and no on the controls. As of right now the jury is still out on the true, real world effectiveness of the new Hubsan X4 models' barometer control. In all honesty, the old Hubsan X4 H 107 L does a fine job. It's still widely available and cheap. It's very fast but also very stable. It's quite easy to transition from the classic throttle over to the barometer phantom throttle. Fly a Hubsan X4 inside a living room well and you can fly a phantom 4 outside like nothing. It should almost be required equipment for a phantom newbie. I have over 1000 crash free phantom flights from phantom 1 to 4 but still fly my Hubsan X4 almost daily. At less than 50 bucks on Amazon it's a bargain.  

Maxi3D Posted at 2016-4-14 19:41
Try Syma X5C. It's cheap, less than $100. It's very stable and forgiving. It's big enough to be flow ...

Thanks.  Good info.  Just what I was looking for.  Controls look very similar to Phantom.  Available from Amazon and for a lot less than $100.... and you get a lot of "stuff" included in the box.  Really good value for the purposes of training...

I am confident that this will be a great way to give students the basic flying skills before migrating to a Phantom.  

T.

The Hubsan X4 I just got has the ability to switch to mode 2 Tx, which the phantoms use.  In mode 2 the throttle/rudder is on the left, elevator/rudder on the right. Maybe I'm missing something here, but I haven't flown it yet (plan to tomorrow!).   I know that the Syma is a very recommended model to learn on as well.   The key for me was my ability to purchase tons of redundancy for the X4 at a lower cost than to get the Syma.  I don't care about the form factor as much as the motor memory that I will gain through flying something I can fly in my backyard every day to accumulate flight time and crash, over and over again (instead of my P4 Pro). The pro is for business, not (necessarily) for flight training and fun.  I bought two extra five packs of batts, a crash kit with an extra body and all parts and two extra batts and, of course, the original X4 with its battery.  So, with a purported seven-to-nine minutes of flight time per battery, I should have (with thirteen batteries) an ostensible hour-and-a-half of flight time every time I go out to practice.  Got all of this and a 4X batt charger for a little over a hundred bucks on Amazon. Didn't care for the FPV as I can do that with the DJI simulator if need be.  Besides, line-of-sight ability and actual flying skills are what getting this little guy is all about.  

Tabvla Posted at 2016-4-16 05:45
Thanks.  Good info.  Just what I was looking for.  Controls look very similar to Phantom.  Available from Amazon and for a lot less than $100.... and you get a lot of "stuff" included in the box.  Really good value for the purposes of training...

I am confident that this will be a great way to give students the basic flying skills before migrating to a Phantom.  

I learned to fly on a syma x5c....loved it.....only thing is make sure you buy a bunch of batteries because they only last about 5 minutes.